Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to be here on behalf of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux and present concerns and perspectives regarding young Canadians in the labour market, and those who are just joining the labour market.
I would first like to tell you about our organization. The Confédération des syndicats nationaux is a labour organization bringing together about 2,000 unions representing nearly 300,000 members. Our members are mainly from Quebec and are grouped based on industry and region. The CSN is working to build a society that is cohesive, democratic, fair and sustainable. It takes part in a number of debates happening in Canadian society.
As a member of the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail and of various roundtables on ongoing on-the-job training, I am pleased to share with you our view of how to integrate young Canadians into the labour market.
In this context of an aging population and fluctuating economy, young people can be the answer to an industrial sector facing labour shortages. However, increasing the promotion of trades among young people still in school increases the risk that they will drop out. In industries looking for permanent staff, a number of businesses lower their hiring criteria, which encourages young people not to complete their general education. They are more interested in making money in the short term than in graduating.
Unfortunately, this very often confines these young people to their first job. Because they did not finish their basic education, they have a hard time finding another job, even within their own trade.
I am not saying that I am against workplace apprenticeship programs. I want to show that we need a better framework for these programs to ensure that the process will lead students to graduate. In order to develop a competent and flexible labour force, we need firm commitments, both from young people to complete their schooling and from employers to make it easier for their young apprentices to go to school.
While some industrial sectors may be facing a skills shortage, all sectors need to renew their workforces. We need to really inform our young people about employment opportunities in growing economic sectors without setting aside their aspirations.
We must be careful of interventionist strategies directing young people towards jobs that meet the pressing needs of certain industries. A good example of this is the mining sector, where there is great fluctuation in labour needs.
To allow young Canadians to make the right choices for their futures, we have to show them the conditions in the skilled trades they are thinking of going into as realistically and as early as possible. This can be done through introduction to trades programs or through internships in the workplace starting in the first years of their studies.
I met a teenager who did a three-year program to become a licenced practical nurse because she was almost guaranteed a job. During her last year in her program, she had to do an internship in a hospital to complete her training. During this internship, she realized that she was emotionally unable to work in that kind of environment. She gave up her training and went into another trade.
I am giving you this example to illustrate the fact that young people's potential in school and their aspirations do not necessarily correspond to labour market needs. It is important to initiate young people as early as possible to the real environment in the trade they want to choose.
Still, apprenticeship programs are important tools to integrate young people into the workforce properly. If we want more young people to participate in apprenticeship programs through the apprenticeship incentive grant and the apprenticeship completion grant, we believe financial incentive measures are important. In particular, these grants should be made non-taxable and training measures for young people on employment insurance should be created and improved.
We must use these periods of economic downturn and layoffs to give Canadian workers, especially young people, the opportunity to complete or update their general education and to reorient their careers towards growing employment sectors.
If these approaches are to be truly effective, they have to be incentive and not coercive measures.
Regarding the red seal program, Quebec is really lagging behind. Quebec is generally behind in terms of on-the-job training. While there are 57 professional standards in Quebec, only 7,765 workers out of a pool of targeted workers, or 2%, obtained professional certification.
In addition, workers who want to obtain a red seal must pay $106 to take the exam. Why spend money to get a certification that brings nothing more than greater interprovincial mobility? The workers who are most interested in interprovincial mobility are young Canadians, as shown in the 2011 annual report of the Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship. The average age of new apprentices in 2009 was 24.
If we want to increase the number of workers with red seals, the exam costs should be covered entirely by the red seal program. The program could also include a mechanism for workers to obtain their red seal when they are certified under a provincial standard. For example, young apprentices getting a passing mark of 70% would obtain their red seal.
Going beyond this designation, we have to ensure that young Canadians participating in apprenticeship programs in skilled trades acquire the basic skills they need to continue their training throughout their lives.
If we want the young people of today to become the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, we have to give them the tools to do so.
Thank you.